


listen, the bells ring, (all the living are dead and the dead are all living, the war is over)

by shamewithtwolegs



Series: learning to heal here in our war-torn motherland [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Air Nomad Genocide (Avatar), Angst, Can be read as a stand alone, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Post-War, air nomad culture, momtara and dadko shenanigans in the background, putting the aang in angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27276316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamewithtwolegs/pseuds/shamewithtwolegs
Summary: He sits down where the house used to be. Only the rustle of the leaves, the sounds of crickets, the distant waves, and the hitching of his breath are heard. Something in his chest breaks softly.Aang, after the war.
Relationships: Aang & Katara (Avatar), Aang & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: learning to heal here in our war-torn motherland [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772065
Comments: 13
Kudos: 89





	listen, the bells ring, (all the living are dead and the dead are all living, the war is over)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [straydelights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/straydelights/gifts).



> I miss you nucs, hope we can all share a meal together again and cry about money problems and other wants that will probably remain a 'someday' forever.
> 
> Shoutout to [Sadsnail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sadsnail) for being an amazing beta as always!

The war is over. Aang, for the first time in a long while, has the whole day to himself.

Early dawn and he tries to meditate in the Palace Garden. In the pond, tutleducks waddles and quacks. It's summer, even at six the sun is already up and promises an even hotter noon. He can’t focus and by seven he gives up.

A gardener is quietly trimming the bushes off to the left of him. Movements slow and careful so as not to disturb. He wears a simple shirt and pants with the sleeves rolled up. Aang waves at him and the gardener offers a shy — and a tad terrified — smile.

Movement catches his eyes and Katara is walking towards him in the wooden hallways.

“Good morning Aang,” she greets and Aang smiles back in return. She frowns. “What’s wrong, Aang?”

“I’m having a hard time meditating,” Aang answers.

“I’m sure you’ll manage it soon. In the meantime,” — Katara yawns — “breakfast?”

“I think I’ll try again.”

Katara nods and leaves him be in the company of his thoughts.

\---

There’s a drink almost all Air Nomads have drunk at least once in their life, it is called butter tea. Only the master airbenders are permitted the knowledge of how to make it and there never was a lack of a master airbender willing to make gallons of it. Aang craves it now; he thinks he could make it if he tries.

When Aang got his tattoos Gyatso taught him how.

“You squeeze them like this,” Gyatso did twisting motions in the air, clockwise and then counterclockwise, intentionally exaggerated. Aang laughed himself into tears. Gyatso’s eyes bulged and he tried to imitate the sound of milk dripping.

Butter tea is made from the milk of the healthiest mother bison and made at the highest possible altitude. No one knows how to make it anymore besides Aang, and even then, it is impossible to make it now.

\---

He returns to his friends in their room. Toph has earthbended herself a raised platform off to the left of their huge bed, claiming she was more comfortable that way. She prefers a space of her own. Zuko never even considered staying with them, he offered them bedrooms each but Aang, Katara, and Sokka turned him down. Suki’s staying with the rest of the Kyoshi Warriors and is busy with guarding Zuko twenty-four seven.

Their room has two sliding doors. One that slides open to the wooden hallways and the rest of the Fire Palace’s compound. The other leads to an open space where Appa and Momo are napping.

They’re so strange, the nobles of the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom. Sokka seems to think so too. Aang is grateful he is not the only one.

“Screw that General Wu!” he complains. He and Katara came back from the General Meeting _“We’re gonna have to think of a cool name for that,” Sokka mumbles._

“Screw that General Wu!” Katara echoes, with more anger. She throws herself onto the bed.

Aang was there at the meeting too. 

“What did he mean, Katara?” Aang asks.

Katara’s cheeks flush red in embarrassment, her hands making their way to her face. “Uh, he implied that we, uh, all were doing something indecent . . . “ He can’t make out the rest of the explanation, Katara’s hands muffling it.

“He did what?!” Toph jumps up from her reclining position. “That’s it, I’m joining you. When’s the next General Meeting?” _“ How ‘bout_ _The Four Talks,” Sokka mumbles to himself._

Aang passes his staff from one hand to another. “My people always sleeps together; we have big communal halls where we can all sleep together. We have – _had_ big abaca mats for every three to four people.“ His voice turns a little wistful.

“True that!” Sokka nods vigorously, “Nothing wrong with communal sleeping; if anything, it seems wasteful to have a room for every single person. Then again, they really wanna rub it in the faces of the common people like us that they can afford it.”

“You’re being culturally insensitive,” Toph defends without heat.

“Seems lonely. “ Aang shudders at the thought of sleeping alone inside a box. Without Appa and his friends for company.

“Aang,” — Katara starts sitting on the floor— “we’re family, right? You can share Sokka’s and my tent.”

Aang smiles at her. “Thanks, Katara.” 

“What exactly is this ‘domestic production’ and ‘reparations’ they were talking about in the meeting? I didn’t understand any of it,” Aang admits shamefully.

Katara explains what she knows from her, admittedly, limited education.

“Can we call our meetings _The Elemental Discussions?_ ” Sokka asks, rubbing a finger to his chin, lost in thought. 

\---

Aang excuses himself from attending the day’s meeting and finds himself in the Royal Library. He means to get books of economy, whatever that means, but gets distracted by a beautiful book behind the librarian’s counter. The spine jutts out and is almost half a foot in length. The spine says _Artistic Motifs Across the Fire Nation Isles_ in gold calligraphy and the lotus flower in top and bottom.

“Can I borrow that, please?” Aang points at it.

The librarian bows and brings the book over to him. Aang bows in thanks. The book is wider than his torso. The palace library is empty; Aang gets the feeling it's been a long while since the windows and doors are open. He tucks himself into a corner to read.

The author – _Suyin Lang —_ is good. Aang flips through the pages. Almost every other page is dominated by an artwork. The Fire Nation has a fondness for using the least amount of brushstrokes in an impressive attempt to capture an image. Aang is mesmerized by a painting of a bird made with three measured brushstrokes. When an artwork is colored, it is elaborate and every inch an artwork in itself, common in fabric art.

A page catches his eyes. He stares at it and leans back. 

He flips the pages slowly. A whole section dedicated to mandalas. Lang calls it circular motifs; no text explaining them, each simply titled by the place it was found in. He stares and stares until his eyes blur with tears. 

Illustrated in bold colors are circles upon circles, waves upon waves. Aang knows this, this was inspired by the Air Nomads’ Mandala. They’re not gone yet. Separation, Aang thinks with quiet gratefulness, is the greatest illusion there is.

\---

_The worst part of waking up a century later . . ._

The worst and best part of peace times is the availability of time. Aang has no more pressing matters in need of immediate attention. They can take their time to stretch their bones and waste a day away in indulgence. They can take their time to think. To dwell.

Aang wants to go to the turtleduck pond again. When he gets up from the bed he finds Katara wide awake.

“I’m going to the turtleducks, wanna come?” Aang offers. 

Katara nods and shuffles up, deliberately hitting her brother with a pillow in her haste to get up. They’re not the only ones there. Zuko’s there with the gardener in the middle of a quiet discussion. Only his crown glinting under the moonlight marks him as the leader of this nation. He spots them and gestures at them to sit with him. The gardener stiffens a little and turns to bow.

“It's okay,” Katara says placatingly to the gardener. The gardener relaxes a little. Katara takes a seat beside the gardener and Aang besides Zuko. Four people sitting in the grass and the moonlight bright enough to see each other.

“Where do the turtleducks go at night?” Aang wonders. A leaf falls to the pond and creating a ripple that went uninterrupted ‘til it hits the edges.

“Under that narra tree; they have a nest. Like us, they sleep at night,” the gardener answers, pointing at a tree with a thick trunk. He has a very soft voice.

“None of us are asleep,” Katara points out. Her eyes sharpen a little as she turns to look at Zuko. “ _You_ should be asleep, Your Highness.”

“You should too!” Zuko splutters.

“ _I_ didn’t have a gazillion meetings today, I just had the General one. And I don’t have a gazillion meetings tomorrow. Go the hell to sleep Zuko or I will . . . “ she lets the threat hang in the air.

Aang lets their banter fade into the background. The gardener watches them with a soft smile. 

“I never asked, what’s your name?” Aang asks.

“My name is Kuzon, Avatar Aang,” Kuzon answers softly.

Aang swallows his surprise, the loss in his heart make themselves known with a painful throb.

“Just Aang,” he forces himself to say before going quiet. He keeps his eyes on the moon. “I had a friend named Kuzon. He was from Byakko. Where are you from?”

Kuzon made a noise of sympathy. “I’m from Byakko, as well. Kuzon is a very common name in the Fire Nation.”

A Kuzon that was said he and Aang were going to man a stand for that following year’s Fire Festival. They were so excited they already had ideas brainstormed. Kuzon was adamant they sell animal sugars and Aang thought they should perform instead. Kuzon, ever shy Kuzon, refused.

He doesn’t notice his eyelids going heavy, the noise of quiet conversation slipping into silence. Katara shuffles and picks him up to bring him back to their room. She says something muffled to Zuko. Zuko bids Kuzon goodbye and joins them in their room. If he’s more awake he can count the set of breathing inside and even asleep the sound of their breathing brings him comfort like no other. 

\---

“Wait, wait, wait, so, then you don’t know who your parents were?” Sokka demands, affronted at the prospect.

“Oh, Aang,” Katara’s tone is sad.

“Of course I know who my parents were!” Aang burst out, “Their names were Geshe and Lunpo. But they didn’t raise me themselves, Gyatso and the rest of the monks at the temple did.”

“Did you have siblings?” Sokka asks, sensing that they’re on a slippery slope yet still curious.

“Yes. Everyone under the monk’s care was my siblings.” Aang tries to explain. Words are helpless. Words are inadequate. 

“No. Like the way Sokka and I are siblings,” Katara clarifies.

“They were my siblings,” Aang insists, feeling like he’s speaking in gibberish. “Gimba. Pema. Plachut.” He stops. Feeling so very like his age.

\---

Aang took _Artistic Motifs Across the Fire Nation Isles_ back to their room at the palace. He spends sleepless nights tracing the circles so very like the mandalas the monks used to labor over for days.

Aang’s education is inadequate. Iroh offers to arrange his education and Aang gladly accepts. He’s still needed at the meetings as a symbol, more than anything else. Tomorrow starts his classes with private tutors; despite his desire to be with other students, he understands what he needs to learn is more advanced and specialized than what is taught in the sparse schools that exist in spatters across the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation. It is just dawning on him that he might have to stay longer.

\---

Before they know it, three months have passed. The first month — filled with frenzy and choked with meetings to establish Fire Lord Zuko and the Avatar’s authority and guide peace into a stumbling first step — is gone and over now. Peace rewards them their well-deserved downtime. Fire Lord Zuko’s paperwork and meetings go down a little, he’s starting to accept that this is gonna be his usual. General Suki, takes her to leave to rebuild the Kyoshi Island and train the new batch of Kyoshi warriors with a promise that she won’t be gone for more than three months. Avatar Aang’s number of meetings to attend goes down significantly, his classes take up only a few days a week of his time. Katara and Sokka stay with him for the moment at the Fire Palace, entrusting the rebuilding of their home to their father. Zuko has Iroh to turn to. Katara and Sokka have their father, out of all of them peace has left them the most free. Suki has her girls back at Kyoshi Island. Aang’s the only Avatar and the last airbender.

Aang’s birthday passes unremarked because he didn’t tell any of them. He’s at the turtleduck pond meditating; Kuzon’s quiet humming fills the air as the Avatar turns thirteen. Monsoon season is to come.

\---

“Pack up, gang!” Toph bursts into the room with Zuko in tow. “We’re going to go on a vacation.”

“A short rest,” Zuko corrects. “If you guys are up for it.”

“No way,” Sokka remarks upside down from the bed, bewildered, feet up against the wall for no reason. “ _You?_ You’re inviting us to a vacation away from your precious paperwork?”

“They’re important executive decisions!” Zuko replies indignantly.

“We thought we were gonna have to kidnap you,” Katara admits from under the pillows and blankets beside her brother.

“We thought you’re gonna start speaking in formal bureaucratic all the time,” Sokka adds. 

Zuko rolls his eyes and manages to convey with his body that he’s expectant.

“Wait,” Katara realizes. “Now, _now?”_

“Hell, yeah!” Aang cheers, already jumping up from his seated position on the floor. He airbends the blankets and pillows off the Water Tribe siblings, bouncing around the room in excitement. “Where are we going? Are we going back to Ember Island? What should I bring, Zuko?”

Zuko smiles. “We’re going to Byakko.”

“Kuzon’s hometown.” Aang’s enthusiasm dampens. Thankfully, no one notices. 

“Who’s Kuzon?” Toph asks.

“The gardener?” Katara looks at Zuko for confirmation. 

“Yeah. We’re actually tagging along with him,” Zuko sounds sheepish.

“Aren’t we gonna bother him on his off days?” Aang’s suddenly apprehensive.

“No,” Zuko denies. “He’s the one who asked.”

“In that case,” Sokka says, still upside down on the bed. “APPAAAA WAKE UPPPP!.”

“Are you sure he doesn’t mind?” Aang says desperately.

“I don’t mind,” Kuzon’s head pokes in from the outside. Gone is his casual attire, replaced with something with more layers and a simple gold necklace. Slung from his shoulders a suitcase with golden embroidery on all four corners.

He smiles shyly. “Fire Lord Zuko said I’ll get to ride the sky bison.”

“His name is Appa,” Aang says, any reservations melting away. “You can be the one to say Yip! Yip!”

Kuzon mouths the words ‘Yip Yip’, a little confused.

\---

Byakko from above is the same as it was from a century ago. A little hook of an island and green all over with a generous dusting of a red span of rocks. Kuzon’s gripping his suitcase tightly and leaning over the saddle with a sense of wonder in his eyes. In the clouds, Aang feels the most weightless. It never gets old, being able to share this freedom with others.

“It would have taken me days to arrive if I took the usual transportation!” He laughs breathlessly. Closing in to land, they see a few villagers crowding to gape at them from below.

“Coming through!” Sokka shouts at them. They land softly to the gasp of the island’s inhabitants.

Kuzon seems reluctant to come down, still in the high of flying. He climbs down, last.

“Thank you, Aang.” He bows. 

Aang bows back. “It's no matter Kuzon.

They stand and smile at each other. “Besides, you really shouldn’t thank us for crashing your vacation,” Aang apologizes.

Kuzon waves his concerns off. Kuzon went on to introduce the crowd to their leader and war heroes. A few of them subtly step back when Kuzon introduces Fire Lord Zuko. Toph plays with her toes in the dirt.

“This place is small,” Toph observes. “I feel like it doesn’t deserve to be called an island.”

“The smallest island in the Fire Nation Isle,” Aang remarks, happy to know something.

Someone from the crowd broke through to Kuzon. Kuzon smiles and hugs the stranger. 

Katara sends Kuzon a questioning look. Kuzon introduces them one by one to his father who looks overwhelmed by the company his son keeps. The crowds eventually disperse, but from where Aang stands he can spy people watching them from nearby windows, hopefully not with malice. 

“You’ll stay at our place, yes?” Kuzon asks. “We only have one extra room, if you don’t mind sharing?”

“Kuzon!” his father hisses, terrified.

“We don’t mind sharing,” Katara confirms, smiling.

“But we wouldn’t want to impose,” Zuko refuses, politely. “We’re used to sleeping outside.”

Kuzon’s father squeaks at that.

“Oh, c’mon it's fine! It might rain tonight,” Kuzon insists.

“Your heart’s jackrabbiting,” Toph tells Kuzon’s father.

“We already bothered you enough today.”

“It's fine.”

“Yes, okay if you don’t mind.”

Sokka’s watching the exchange, growing more and more confused by the second. He leans down to whisper in Aang’s ears, “Fire Nation people are weird.”

Aang giggles. “We’re all weird.”

\---

For dinner, they have _tilapia_ and rice before settling in for the night. The extra room Kuzon has has mats with three big pillows instead of futons and mattresses. It's big enough that they can all share. Kuzon’s father apologizes to them repeatedly but eventually leaves them on their own.

“Hey Aang, is this how your people sleep?” Sokka ventures, careful.

Toph, for once, doesn’t kick up a fuss about sleeping beside them. 

“I’m surprised you’re allowed to get away without any guards,” Katara says, fluffing the pillow.

Zuko rolls out the mats without answering.

“Zuko?” Katara prompts. “You _are_ allowed to have a getaway?”

“I left Uncle a note,” Zuko mumbles, busying himself by straightening the non-existent creases in the mat.

Toph barks out a laugh.

“Zuko!” Katara smacks him with a pillow.

“I’m the Fire Lord. I’m my own highest authority, peasant!” Zuko rolls behind Aang before the pillow lands where he sat. 

Aang sat down before answering quietly, “Yes. But we would have giant windows where we can feel the wind.”

The walls of air temples are more air than concrete. Aang breathes deeply and settles into sleep. 

\---

The middle of the night finds Aang wandering around Byakko alone. He goes to Kuzon’s (Kuzon that was his friend a century ago) house. The place where the house used to stand is gone, only a stretch of grass remains. Is a century really that much of a time for everything to change?

He sits down where the house used to be. Only the rustle of the leaves, the sounds of crickets, the distant waves, and the hitching of his breath are heard. Something in his chest breaks softly.

Gyatso and the other monks have this ceremony where they’ll make marks with granites on a stone platform. With a straw, colored sand, and nothing else they’ll labor day in and day out to create these beautiful mandalas. Aang’s favorites have red, brown, and orange as the main colors used. 

_The Mandala of Harmony_ they call it. He begins to hum, trying desperately to remember the rhythm of the mantra that accompanied it. He has forgotten how it goes.

It was pretty. It takes a dedicated hand and an unwavering focus to make. It's hard to believe something so elaborate and containing many fine details are made out of sand with nothing keeping it together but its own weight. And then the monks will destroy it within a minute into a small controlled tornado to be guided into the open air and released. The labor it took gone with the wind and nothing to show for it. Gyatso told him it was to signify impermanence, that is the way of the world.

Blasphemously, Aang wants to reach into the past to tell them they’re wrong. Maybe if we weren’t so disgusted with active combat, maybe if we took the time to make the things we make lasting then maybe they would still be here, alive and hale. Maybe Aang would not need to jealously guard what it seems to be so little that he can remember in his mind, on his own, alone. So very afraid that what little he does remember will be blown away too.

 _Is this what you meant Gyatso? Is this what you wanted, Elders? You are all gone with the wind and I am alone._

So this is grief.

“Aang! Aang! AANG!” Katara’s screaming.

When he comes to, Katara and Zuko are in front of him. They are in a crater, maybe a meter deep. The grass’ has flattened and the trees bow at him from the weight of his power. 

“Aang . . . “ Zuko lets his name hang in the air.

“ . . . Did I hurt anyone?” Aang weakly asks.

Zuko shakes his head. Katara catch him in an embrace.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles into the fabric of Katara’s dress. Zuko’s arms stiffly come up to embrace him too. 

“It's fine Aang, you just scared us there a bit.” Zuko’s chin hook at the top of his head. A moment pass before they let go, a quiet whine escapes Aang’s throat and doesn’t stop and continues to become weeping.

Wordlessly they pressed beside him. He wrings himself dry from weeping ‘til the chickens start to crow, and the sunrays creep into the horizon.

“They’re really gone.” His throat feels scratchy. “Kuzon’s house was here and it's gone now. My family, they’re all gone now too. There’s no one left but me. What if I forget them? I’m already forgetting stuff.”

“We’re your family too and we’re still here,” Katara comforts.

“The typhoons of June bring the May lilies,” Zuko attempts to comfort. Aang huffs a laugh at the effort.

A gale of wind signals Appa’s landing, atop of him are Sokka, Toph, and Kuzon. Kuzon’s holding a huge rattan basket.

“Breakfast,” he explains. The three of them ascend from the crater and joins them. Toph stretches out on the grass. Sokka’s being swallowed by Appa’s fur. Kuzon’s partitioning their food into bowls.

“Sokka, get out of the bison’s fur,” Zuko orders.

“And wash your hands first,” Katara adds. 

They have bread, rice, and leftover tilapia from the night before.

“You know,” Kuzon began, “this place has a story . . .“

He looks at Aang, askance. The Fire Nation people speak in subtext, Aang understands he’s being asked for permission.

“What happened?” Aang asks, he has a feeling the answer’s going to be important.

Kuzon inhales. “Sozin wasn’t able to end the Air Nomads in one day. Some escaped by hiding and being aided. This place used to have a residence in it and it is said that they managed to hide the younger Air Nomads for almost a year before being found out.”

Grief washes over Aang, a little less sharp. Somehow, he can just figure out whose idea it might have been. _Kuzon,_ he prays that Tuang Yin carries his message, _thanks, buddy._

Aang eats breakfast with his friends. He’s still so scared this would be taken away from him as well; and they will be someday, impermanence is the only thing that can be truly believed in. He wishes Gyatso was here to teach him how to make it not hurt, how to make it so he does not fear. He’s not a good monk, helplessly attached. When he pours the sand to make a mandala he doesn’t have the heart to blow it all away, but time blows it away anyway. He doesn’t know if he’ll survive it.

He carefully doesn’t think about it and holds on tight to now. He can afford it, for now, he has time.

**Author's Note:**

> title from In Our Bedroom After The War by Stars
> 
> Send cat pics and love letters to me here [averageace](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/averageace)  
> pls Im lonely. Criticism welcome.
> 
> Kuzon being the Lee of Fire Nation came from MuffinLance. Kuzon being from Byakko came from Vathara. Mandala sand art came from a real practice by Tibetan monks. 
> 
> Leave a comment, it makes me feel less isolated. (please)


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